


Lucky Picture

by rebelmeg



Series: Rebelmeg's TSB Fills 2020 [14]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Adorable Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), F/M, Family Feels, Happy Ending, Iron Family, Maria Stark's Good Parenting, Time Travel, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Lives, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:08:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25646314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelmeg/pseuds/rebelmeg
Summary: What if, when Tony went back to 1970 to retrieve the Tesseract... it wasn't Howard Stark he met at the SHIELD base?I wrote this for my TSB August Flash Bingo square "Howard Stark", and my Pepperony Bingo square G4 - Planning for a family
Relationships: Howard Stark/Maria Stark, Maria Stark & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Series: Rebelmeg's TSB Fills 2020 [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1591063
Comments: 45
Kudos: 237
Collections: Pepperony Bingo 2020, Tony Stark Flash Bingo





	Lucky Picture

**Author's Note:**

> Just so y'all know, my Endgame salt is still strong. And this particular hill of salt revolves around the fact that Tony's issues with his dad were basically resolved clear back in IM2, and yet they _kept bringing it up_. Dudes. Channel your inner Elsa. Let it go.
> 
> So, rather than continuing to flog that dead horse, what if Tony had actually met someone during that little time skip that would have provided needed closure? 
> 
> And, as always, Tony is alive and well, because my version of canon is better than the crap we were fed in theaters.

It was hard to believe, but so far, this half-cocked plan of his had gone off without much of a hitch. He and Steve had gotten a few odd looks, but that was it for the moment.

Now Tony had the Tesseract, safely tucked into the briefcase he carried as he headed to the elevator that would take him up and out. He’d meet Steve, who had hopefully gotten ahold of the Pym Particles to get them back, and that was that. Nothing to it. They'd be back in no time.

He pressed the button for the elevator, trying not to fidget as he waited for it. _Be cool, stay calm, and walk as if you own the place._ Unquestioning confidence had gotten him into and out of a whole bunch of impossible places and situations.

There was the ding of the elevator arriving, and Tony bounced on his heels just a little bit as he waited for the doors to open. They did, and he moved to step inside, barely glancing at the heavily pregnant blonde woman already in the elevator.

Then he did a double-take.

And stopped dead, staring, utterly unable to move as he stared at that face.

Holy cow… it was his _mom_.

Several seconds went by, during which Tony’s brain had completely and utterly shut down. The only thing he could do was stare, taking in every feature, noting how young this Maria Stark was, how pretty.

“You getting on?”

He blinked a few times, realizing he was awkwardly standing half in and half out of the elevator, the doors nudging at his shoulder. Maria was looking at him strangely, which, hello, he’d been staring at her like an idiot for waaaay too long. His mom, it was his _mom_ , holy shit…

Pulling himself together with some difficulty, Tony fumbled into the elevator, nearly dropping the briefcase as he straightened his jacket, hitting the wrong buttons twice before he got the one for the top floor.

Maria was looking at him out of the corner of her eye, probably wondering what kind of mental case she was trapped in an elevator with. Tony almost laughed crazily at the entire situation, the utter bizarreness of it.

With a significant effort, he reined in his wildly scrambling thoughts and emotions, then turned and politely smiled. 

“Sorry, that was really weird of me. My apologies.”

Her smile was small and soft, and oh, that ached in places inside of him that hurt. “It’s alright.”

There was a moment of silence, and Tony became acutely aware that he had only seconds until the doors would open again, and one or the other of them would be getting out. And he shouldn’t say anything. He _shouldn’t_. He had already made himself memorable by being a complete idiot, he should just stop now and leave it alone, let her walk away.

But… he couldn’t. It had been so long, more than thirty years since he’d last seen his mom. He’d been without her in his life longer than he’d had her, and he couldn’t stop himself from taking just a little bit of advantage of this incredible gift that fate had just handed him.

Shifting on his feet, Tony sent Maria a quick glance. “It’s just that… you remind me of my mom. I have a picture from when she was young.”

There was an edge of teasing in her voice as she said, “I hope that’s some kind of a compliment?” She smiled at him a little wider, more genuine, and it still hurt to see that achingly familiar smile, but it also soothed a few old cracks in his heart.

Tony nodded, swallowing hard. “It is. She was beautiful and kind and I loved her more than anyone else in the world.”

The elevator dinged, and reality sharply ruined the moment. Tony’s heart was beating like a drum and he was breathing fast as the doors opened, expecting his mom to step out at any moment.

But she didn’t. “Not your floor either?” She asked, glancing at him.

Tony looked at the panel of buttons, and realized that this floor was one of the ones he’d hit when he’d been blundering around trying to hit the right button. “Nope. Hit a few I didn’t mean to.”

She smiled a little, but in a way that looked like she was trying not to. Like he had amused her. It made him feel all warm and weird inside.

The elevator doors closed again, and it started moving.

“That was sweet, what you said about your mom.” Maria said, surprising and delighting the heck out of Tony. “She must have been very lucky to have a son like you. How long ago did she pass?”

Right now, it felt like both a blink and an eternity. “Thirty-two years in December. She and my dad both. It feels like a lot less sometimes.”

She frowned in sympathy. “Oh, you must have been heartbroken. You couldn’t have even been grown up yet.”

“It’s been pointed out that I never grew up.” Tony tried for humor, trying to smile, trying to memorize and take in every moment of this. “I was twenty.”

Maria shook her head, commiserating with him. “I was around that age when my parents passed as well.”

The elevator stopped again, shuddering to a halt, and when neither of them moved to get out, they both chuckled. And, Tony couldn’t believe it, he was pretty sure he was blushing. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d blushed…

While they waited for the doors to close again, Tony thought about what his mom had said about her parents. He hadn’t remembered that, about how young she had been when her parents died. How could he not have remembered that? 

The doors closed again, rattling slightly, and he searched for something else to say, not wanting to waste these last precious moments before they got to the floor Maria was getting off on. Tony couldn’t help but look at the one thing about Maria that was stranger than everything else. He had never seen his mother pregnant. He didn’t even think he’d seen any pictures.

“If it’s not rude to ask… how far along are you?” 

Maria smiled and smoothed her hands lovingly over her belly, a soft expression in her eyes. “Eight months. Every day I can’t imagine possibly getting bigger, but I’ll do it. I’ll do anything it takes.” 

Tony swallowed again against a growing lump in his throat. “You sound excited.” 

“Oh, there aren’t words. He or she is my miracle baby. I had given up, I thought for sure that we’d missed our chance. I'm a little old to be trying, and my husband is no spring chicken either.” 

It felt somehow like a tearing, soothing hurt to hear her say that. To know, even though he really already knew it, but to hear his mother say it with such relief and gratitude and love in her voice… to know that he had been _wanted_. At least by one of them. “I’m glad to hear it. I hope he or she is everything you’re hoping for.” 

“Oh, they will be. I know they will. I can’t wait to meet whoever it is in there.” 

The elevator stopped again, Maria actually looked a little teary as the doors opened, as if she were so happy she couldn’t hold it in. 

She chuckled, looking a little embarrassed as she moved to get out, and Tony handed over the handkerchief in his pocket. “Sorry, I get emotional so easily.” 

“Don’t worry about it at all,” Tony smiled at her, then followed her out unthinkingly. “My wife was the same way, it made her so mad.” 

“You have children?” Maria asked him, dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief. Behind her, the elevator doors closed, and Tony didn’t pay it any mind.

“Yes. A little girl. I love her so much it hurts.” 

She smiled. “That’s how it should be. Does your wife love it, getting to dress her up?” 

Tony grinned, not about to admit that he’d been just as excited as Pepper to buy far too many cute clothes for Morgan when she was a baby, and that he hadn’t ever stopped. “She does have her fair share of cute outfits. But she doesn’t like having her hair done, it’s all we can do to brush it every day.” 

Maria laughed a little as she handed back the handkerchief with a murmur of thanks. “She sounds like a handful.” 

“She is. Takes after me, I’m afraid.” He couldn’t help the self-deprecating tone of voice.

She looked a little sad for him all of a sudden. “It’s so unfortunate that your mother didn’t get to meet her.”

Tony shook his head, slightly horrified to realize that he suddenly had tears in his eyes. “It’s okay. It’s been a long time.” 

“But you still miss her.” Maria’s eyes… his mother’s dark blue eyes were full of sympathy and understanding, and it took everything in him not to reach out and beg for her to hug him. 

Turning the handkerchief in his hand over to the dry side, he wiped at his eyes, feeling a little embarrassed. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.” 

As if she could somehow read his mind, or maybe see on his face how desperately he craved it, Maria surprised him by stepping closer and wrapping her arms around him. It was slightly awkward around her pregnant belly between them, but Tony didn't care. For one perfect, aching moment, he felt like a kid again, a teenager that had to bend down to hug his mom, and he didn’t even have to think about it. He immediately hugged her back, and he closed his eyes to take it in. 

It was exactly the same as he remembered. He could smell her perfume, Rive Gauche by Yves Saint Laurent, her signature fragrance, and it was like falling into a hundred different memories. Playing the piano with her. Sitting under her vanity table when she got ready. Dancing with her at parties and galas. Crying on her shoulder after his latest fight with Howard. Hugging her and lifting her right off the ground at his graduation from MIT.

Far too soon, she pulled back, and Tony had to force himself to let her go instead of holding onto her forever. 

“Thank you,” He whispered, unable to quite meet her eyes. She just smiled at him, a little sadly. 

“I bet your mother would have loved to have met her granddaughter.” 

“She would have,” Tony agreed roughly, twisting the handkerchief in his hands. “Would have spoiled her rotten, I have no doubt.” 

“As grandmothers should.” She smiled at him, and all of a sudden Tony had a wild idea.

“Would… I know this is weird, but do you want to see a picture?”

His mom nodded, her smile tender. “Of course I would.”

Tony had brought one with him, tucked in his pocket for luck. A picture of him with his two girls, sitting on their porch swing and grinning at the camera that Happy had been holding. He handed it over, and watched Maria’s face almost anxiously, knowing that this was the only time she would ever see her granddaughter, and Pepper.

“Ohhh,” She smiled and gently touched the picture. “She takes after you. Look at those eyes.”

“Yeah,” Tony’s voice was still a little hoarse. “Yeah, she does. Spitting image, sometimes.”

“Lucky girl, she’s going to grow up into a beautiful woman. Your wife looks lovely.”

“She’s my favorite person in the world. Her and my Morgan.”

Maria looked at the picture for a few moments more, then handed it back to him. “You’re a lucky man.”

“I am,” he nearly choked, tucking the photo back in his pocket and hoping he’d be able to get through this. And then a voice from behind startled him.

“Mrs. Stark? I found him, he’s waiting in the car.” 

Oh wow. It was like being dipped into a fever dream twice, hearing that voice. That unmistakable, proper, British voice that Tony had tried so hard to emulate with his first language-based AI. He turned around, and sure enough, there was Edwin Jarvis. And wow, he was young. Most of his hair hadn’t even gone gray yet, and he didn’t have the slightly age-hunched shoulders that he did before he died.

“Oh, Jarvis, I’m sorry. I got caught up chatting.” Maria smiled at Tony, and he became aware that they’d been standing by the elevator this whole time. He’d been completely oblivious, caught up in this strange little bubble where nothing in the world existed but his mom. He even panicked for a second, and had to look down to make sure he still had the briefcase in his hand. 

“I have to be going now,” Maria was saying, “my husband is waiting. It was a pleasure meeting you.” She turned to go, then stopped and looked at him again. “Oh! I never asked your name.”

Tony paused for a fraction of a second, his brain scrambling to come up with something. “Anthony. Anthony… Potts.”

“Maria Stark. It was really nice to meet you.” She held out one hand for him to shake, and absently, as if she did it all the time, stroked her other hand over her belly.

Tony nodded dumbly as he held her hand, trying to keep from looking between his mom and Edwin Jarvis like a crazy person. “It was lovely talking to you.” _Possibly the loveliest thing I’ve ever experienced._

“It was for me too.”

They turned to go, both of them, two people that had shaped Tony’s adolescent life more than anyone else, the ones that had loved him most fiercely. 

“Um, Mr. Jarvis?” He couldn’t stop himself from calling out. The butler looked at him, slightly confused. Tony motioned to his tie, remembering how Jarvis had always put such effort into looking proper. “I like your tie. It’s nice. Very sharp knot.” 

“Oh.” Jarvis looked down at it, then nodded, smiling just a little bit (which meant he was very pleased). “Thank you, sir. Good day.” 

Watching the elevator doors close behind them was so surreal. There was a complicated tangle of emotions in Tony’s chest, both buoyant and heavy, and he didn’t have the time to parse it all out right now. The weight of the case in his hand brought him back to what he was doing, and after taking a deep breath to re-center himself, Tony hit the button for the elevator again. He had to go find Steve, and get back home. He couldn’t wait to tell Pepper.

* * *

Maria glanced out the window of the car as Jarvis turned it out of the SHIELD compound, catching sight of that nice man from the elevator, Anthony, as he exited the building.

Oh. Anthony. _Hmm._

“What’s got you so thoughtful?” Howard asked, and when she looked over at him, his eyebrows were raised.

She smiled and leaned into him, looping her arm through his. “You know, I was just thinking.”

“Yeah?” His gaze had dropped down to the sheaf of papers in his hand.

“What about Anthony?”

“Huh?”

Maria put a hand on her belly. “As a name, if it’s a boy? I like it. We could call him Tony.” That appealed to the Italian in her.

“Tony Stark.” Howard brightened, “You know what, I like that. That’s got a nice ring to it. That’s a good name for an heir to the business.”

Maria fixed him with a wry look. “And maybe a child, too?”

“Well, yeah, of course.”

Shaking her head, Maria smiled with fond exasperation, and gently stroked her hand over her belly. The baby was awake in there, moving around, kicking a little, probably getting cranky that he or she was running out of space

 _Not long now,_ she thought to herself, looking forward to the day with both anticipation and nerves. _Not long now and I’ll finally be able to meet you. Tony._

With a little, secret smile, Maria rested her head on her husband’s shoulder and looked out the window, feeling her baby, her little boy, kick under her hand.

* * *

“Potts, huh?” Pepper asked with a grin, brushing a stray lock of hair away from the heavily bandaged side of Tony’s face. “You really said that?”

“Sure did.” Tony replied, his smile uncomfortable on the one side, but he paid it no mind. The doc had just been in with another dose of the good drugs, so he’d be higher than a kite and not caring about anything in a few minutes. “First thing that popped into my head. And really, it’s true. I’m yours just as much as you’re mine, aren’t I?”

Smiling in that way she had that meant she was really touched, Pepper kissed him gently. “You sure are. I can’t believe it, the odds of you meeting your mom like that.”

“Astronomical.” Tony agreed. “She liked the look of you. Said Morgan looked just like me.”

“It’s nice to know that in a very roundabout and sci-fi time-traveling way, I got your mom’s approval.”

“Daddy! I found the lucky picture!” Morgan clambered right up on Tony’s hospital bed, using her mom as a boost. “Uncle Rhodey found it in your pants.”

“My pants were still intact? Wow.” Tony took the picture Morgan was waving in his face, wincing just a little as she made herself comfortable, knocking into his bandaged arm just a bit. “Look at that. It’s hardly touched.”

He showed Pepper the photograph, a little singed along one side, but the image was intact. “Maybe it really is lucky.”

“Sure it is,” Pepper said, leaning a little closer and resting her hand on his knee. “It got you back through time safe, and it got you here safe. It’s the luckiest picture ever.”

Feeling the medication start to take effect, Tony kissed Morgan’s cheek and tipped his face up for a kiss from his wife. “Good drugs are kicking in. Gonna probably go back to sleep now. You two stay out of trouble.”

Pepper was smiling as she kissed him, her eyes still a little shadowed with worry, but much less so than they had been yesterday. “We’re gonna go get lunch in the cafeteria. Happy’s on his way to sit with you, and Rhodey and Nebula are just down the hall.”

“Mmm. Good man, that Happy. Have fun, girls. I love you.”

Once they had gone, Tony lifted up the picture he still held in his good hand, and pressed it to his heart over the hospital gown he was wearing. Not only was it a very lucky picture, but there was a whole other special memory attached to it that had nothing to do with the image, but everything to do with the woman from the elevator that had held it two days and fifty-three years ago.


End file.
